View this post on the web at [link removed]
On a crisp September morning in 2025, the Bureau of Labor Statistics quietly dropped a bombshell. What had been heralded as a resilient post-pandemic job market under the waning days of the Biden administration was suddenly revealed to be far less robust. In fact it didn’t exist and it never had.
The agency revised its employment figures downward by a staggering 911,000 jobs for the period spanning March 2024 to March 2025—an adjustment that wiped out nearly a million positions that, on paper, had fueled optimism about economic recovery. This was not a statistical tweak, this was not a rounding error, this was not a slip of the pen. This was slightly less than the entire population of South Dakota (924,669) evaporating from the labor force because they didn’t exist. It was the largest such revision in over a decade, evoking memories of the 2009 financial crisis when similar corrections exposed deep hitherto unforeseen vulnerabilities.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH NEXT THING TECHNOLOGIES [ [link removed] ]
NVIDIA's $46.74B Earnings Prove AI Is Here to Stay…And This Can Power It All [ [link removed] ]
NVIDIA shocked Wall Street again with $46.74 billion in revenue, up 56% year over year.
Their CFO now expects $3–$4 trillion in AI infrastructure spending by 2030.¹
Oracle’s results tell the same story.
The company reported $14.9 billion in revenue, up 12% year over year. Cloud infrastructure sales jumped 55%, while long-term cloud contracts surged to $455 billion — a 359% increase in just one year.
The message couldn’t be clearer: AI isn’t a bubble. It’s the new economy.¹
The Problem No One Talks About:
Data centers and AI supercomputers run 24/7, devouring electricity.
But lithium batteries can’t keep up.1 They’re too expensive, supplies are tight, and China controls more than 80% of global lithium processing.
If AI is going to scale to trillions of dollars, the real constraint isn’t chips…
It’s power storage.¹
The Breakthrough That Could Change Everything
That’s why sodium-ion batteries are emerging as the solution.¹
Sodium is 1,400x more abundant than lithium, with significant reserves located in the U.S9
Batteries can be made at a fraction of the cost of lithium — up to 90% less expensive in the first year of use.6
They last longer8, are safer7, and can be built at scale using domestic materials.1
And Next Thing Technologies, an American-owned company, is bringing this breakthrough to market. Their sodium-ion batteries are designed to power everything from massive AI data centers to affordable home backup systems.¹
Think about it: NVIDIA builds the chips.
Oracle runs the cloud. But without safer, cheaper, U.S.-made batteries, the AI boom hits a wall.
Next Thing Technologies is building the infrastructure that could make it possible.¹
Already, 7,800+ investors have committed more than $7 million.3 And right now, shares are available at just [ [link removed] ]$6 with up to 20% in bonus shares.⁴ [ [link removed] ]
👉 [ [link removed] ]Click here to invest in the power behi.nd the AI revolution. [ [link removed] ]
The news rippled through Washington and Wall Street like a seismic wave. Traders paused, policymakers scrambled, and ordinary Americans wondered: If the data we rely on is this unreliable, what else might we be missing? The revision not only recast the narrative of the past year's labor market but also ignited debates about institutional competence, political interference, and the Federal Reserve's stubborn stance on interest rates. At its core, this episode raises a profound question: In an era of hyper-partisan scrutiny, can we still trust the numbers that shape our economic reality?
@Geiger_capitol said it best: [ [link removed] ]
The mechanics of the BLS revision are rooted in a routine but opaque process. Each year, the agency benchmarks its monthly employment surveys against more comprehensive data from unemployment insurance records, which cover nearly the entire workforce. This year's preliminary adjustment, released on September 9, 2025, showed that job growth averaged just 71,000 per month—half the originally reported 147,000. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' official release , the downward shift affected sectors like leisure and hospitality, which had been overestimated amid lingering pandemic disruptions.
Historically, such revisions are not uncommon; they averaged around 100,000 jobs in either direction over the past decade. But this one's magnitude stands out. As reported by The New York Times, [ [link removed] ] it surpasses the 818,000 downward adjustment for the prior year and the record 902,000 drop in 2009, during the Great Recession. Economists attribute the discrepancy to challenges in data collection—small businesses underreporting, seasonal adjustments gone awry, and the lingering effects of remote work blurring traditional metrics. Yet, in a polarized climate, explanations veer toward suspicion.
Vice President JD Vance criticized the BLS for incompetence and lambasted the agency as "useless" a sentiment echoed in White House statements following the latest data release.
President Trump, never one to shy from controversy, had previously fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer in August before the latest revision, citing "incompetence" rather than the numbers themselves and the White House released a statement documenting a "lengthy history of inaccuracies.” [ [link removed] ] Critics decried the firing then as an assault on institutional independence, reminiscent of Trump's past pressures on federal agencies. However with the latest revision it now appears somewhat prescient.
The fallout extended to monetary policy too, where Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell found himself once again in the crosshairs. Throughout 2025, Powell had resisted rate cuts, preaching caution while citing lurking risks of “tariff based inflation” from the new administration’s trade policy and even going so far as resisting cuts as the job market visibly weakened in July and August of 2025.
But the revised jobs data now reveal a much weaker economy, suggesting his caution was misplaced and indeed may have prolonged unnecessary hardship. As Yahoo Finance noted, [ [link removed] ] Trump lambasted Powell as a "total disaster" for being "too late" on cuts, intensifying demands for accountability. Indeed, with job growth now revealed as anemic, Powell's decisions—holding rates steady amid what appeared to be robust employment—look increasingly misguided. Reuters reported that [ [link removed] ] the revision implies the labor market was "weaker than thought," potentially forcing the Fed to recalibrate.
In a previous op-ed we at The Capitalist made a none to veiled assertion that Jerome Powell’s actions regarding interest rates appeared to be more guided by politics than financial conditions.
Given what we now know about how wildly inaccurate the job numbers were that he has been using to justify his actions, his implacable stance on interest rate cuts since Trump got elected at best makes him look incompetent. At worst it makes him look either willfully political or actively pursuing a policy that has harmed Americans and the American Economy. None of which are going to quieten the calls for his resignation.
No amount of pleading caution over “potential tariff based inflation” is going to get him off the hook this time. At this point there should be a Congressional hearing on what Powell knew and when he knew it. Because either he didn’t know the numbers were so wildly skewed (which is concerning to say the least. - One would hope that the Fed Chair has an accurate number of people in work given that their mission is literally to support that.) Or he knew that the numbers were fake and pursued his policy anyway, which opens the lid on a whole Pandora’s box of very awkward questions.
It has sadly become apparent from what has been uncovered so far that the previous Biden administration certainly had a “relaxed” relationship with “the truth.” It was not above sliding things through departments without going through the proper channels (John Brennan and the Crossfire Hurricane dossier) or just making up things from scratch (the Steele dossier.)
Given the supporting proof of both of those instances, is it really a stretch to wonder if employment numbers, over time, maybe, got a little “juiced?” Would you get away with it? Would anybody notice?
This isn't merely about numbers; it's about the erosion of public faith. When data swings this wildly, it undermines confidence in everything from stock markets to personal financial planning. Polls already show declining trust in government statistics, with a 2023 Pew survey indicating only 37% of Americans believe economic data is accurate. In this vacuum, conspiracy theories flourish.
Most concerning of all however is that interest rate decisions broadly speaking are made by balancing the labor market on one side of the scale and inflation on the other. If for the last year nearly a million jobs on that scale have turned out to be fake, that would likely have had an effect on if rates would have been cut sooner.
Would debt levels be as high as they are now if rates had been lower? Would the housing market be in a better shape now if rates had been lower? Would credit card delinquencies be so high now if rates had been lower? All of these questions (and countless others) are affected by what rate the Fed sets. If a major component part of that decision making process is flawed, then the decisions stemming from it are likely flawed too.
The American public is greatly affected by the decisions the Fed makes. It is the duty of The Fed to make the best decisions possible guided not by political bias or fake data.
Experts argue these revisions stem from methodological flaws, not malice. This maybe true, as Hanlon’s Razor states "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity” but a million fake jobs strains credulity.
Certainly reforms to the methodological process like better real-time tracking via digital tools and the current push to put government data on like this on the blockchain to increase transparency would make a difference and prevent such huge revisions in the future.
Regardless of how we move forward, this massive revision compels a reckoning. If economic data is the compass guiding policy, its unreliability risks steering us astray. In complex systems, certainty is always illusory but by embracing uncertainty and investing in better metrics, we might rebuild the trust that sustains a healthy democracy. Congress should heed the calls for hearings on the BLS and the Fed to begin to reclaim that trust.
After all, phantom jobs may vanish, but the consequences linger.
The Capitalist is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
DISCLAIMER
Please refer to our full Disclosures page [[link removed] [ [link removed] ]] to see important information regarding the statements made herein, sometimes identified by superscript numbers (¹, ², etc.).
Forward-looking statements, performance and progress claims (cost, safety, longevity), and market data are speculative estimates based on current assumptions, involve risks, and are not guaranteed. Past performance does not predict future results, specific data requires verification, third-party mentions are informational only, and offer terms may change without notice.
Investing involves risks, including loss of principal. Please read the Offering Circular [[link removed] [ [link removed] ]] before investing.
Rainmaker Ad Ventures is paid by Next Thing Technologies for promoting their securities offering. Payment is in cash and billed monthly. As of the end of May, Rainmaker has received $49,950. Additional fees may have accrued since then.
Unsubscribe [link removed]?